Woodminster: South Pacific, Part II; a brief entertainment

The Reader is alone in her room at night. She is reading the story. Her room is lit by a single bedside lamp, enough to light what she’s reading, but not enough to dispel the shadows in the rest of the room. There are curtains on her dark windows. The curtains are not quite closed. Behind the curtains, in the darkness of the night outside her windows, there is a hint of movement. She does not see what is moving outside her windows in the darkness.

She speaks as she is reading, without looking up.

Reader: I have been reading this story for a long time. It has been hard to find. There are portions hidden in different locations.
I am the girl who had to fight goblins.
I am the girl who ran from werewolves.
I am the girl who deceived the hags and bested their rotting minions.
I have at last gathered all chapters of the story in one place at one time.

Reader continues reading through all that follows. If she speaks, it is again in this manner: as she is reading, without looking up.

In the gap between curtains, an eye appears. This is the eye of the Looky-Loo. It is bright in the night time. It is not in the Reader’s line of sight. We see it. She does not. (If she saw it, this would be a scene of the screaming. Oh, yes. The screaming scenes are the best scenes. But this is not that scene. The eye is peeking in the window.)
It speaks.
To us.

Looky-Loo: She has been reading this story for a long time. And for longer than that, I have been waiting to bite her. Oh my yes, to bite and to yum yum yum taste her. Did I know it was she? No. I did not. I knew I was waiting for whomever found it.
When she found the first part of the story, I was wakey-wakey-eggs-‘n-bakey.
When she found the second part of the story, I was sneaky-sneaky, take a peeky.
Third part found, make no sound.
Fourth part read, dead man’s tread.
Fifth part taken, shades awaken.
Sixth part nicked, I was tricked.
Seventh part: break your heart.
Eighth part written, nightmare bitten.
Final part: where to start?
That’s the part I must find first. Unwind the mind, get fit to burst. Secret sigils, lasting vigils, Sybils murmur in their sleep the mournful dirge of Peeky-Peep. It’s not the same for her or you, ’cause you’ve been peeped by Looky-Loo.

Looky-Loo is right next to you in your seat. This is your last night in the theatre. You will finally know the answer to that question Lucy Pimm asked at your 10th birthday party.

Lucy Pimm: What does it feel like to get your eye ball bitten out of your skull?

Looky-Loo regards you in your theatre seat. Big, friendly smile.

Looky-Loo: Soon you, avid viewer, will know the answer to this question. But not before Miss Lucy Pimm will scream so prim, my proper chopper will hack and lop ‘er.

During the following, Looky-Loo produces a sack from which he pulls a variety of lethally rusty cutting tools, as improbable as they are terrifying. Among the tools are childish costume pieces suitable for transforming a Lucy into a Looky.

Reader: Thus alarming, bells are ringing: someone in the pain is singing. No umbrella, raining frogs, witches shrink from cats and dogs! Now my heart beats dark and grim, for I remember Lucy Pimm!

Lucy Pimm: Looky-Loo, I’m ‘fraid of you.

Looky-Loo: As you should be, wouldn’t good be, getting caught and sliced for nought.

Lucy Pimm: Do not slice me, chop or dice me!

Looky-Loo: One escape the chance you have: speak to Reader, lift the gavel, break the wall and thus unravel separation of her story from her fate (which will be gory).

Reader: This imaginated story gives me chills and blains of fear. It is fiction, yes, but frictive lines have drawn me ever near. Lucy Pimm and Looky-Loo have filled this unexpected drama with the face of most unpleasant and unwelcome childhood trauma.

Lucy Pimm: Now I must, in fear and doubt, wake the reader from without.

Lucy Pimm approaches Reader, standing next to her bed and facing us. As she speaks, Looky-Loo gives her various pieces of the childish costume to make her into a Looky. As Lucy Pimm dons the pieces, she transforms physically – and her physical actions match her words. Looky-Loo continues to hand her the pieces until she is fully accoutered, terrified that Lucy Pimm might inadvertently break the spell (what spell, you ask? Ho-ho-ho, say I), but also erotically delighted at her physical transformation.

Reader: This story is a paging turner, a shiv’ring midnight candle burner.

Lucy Pimm: Because your bed is low-to-floor, I snap my neck – make room for more.
I dislocate my shoulders left and right to fit in spaces tight.
Upon my knees I snap my hips to hush the fears upon your lips.
And though I know it prob’ly rankles, I shatter, now, my girlish ankles.
My crunches echo in your head, but now I fit beneath her bed!

Lucy Pimm, now completely dislocated and fully attired as Lucy-Looky-Loo, pulls herself by the fingers of one hand beneath the bed. She is smiling directly at you. Looky-Loo crouches nearby, in terrified arousal.

Looky-Loo: If Lucy-Looky-Loo, née Pimm, can wake the reader with her grim and broken self, I’m poised to take my fiendish pleasure – at my dark and dev’lish liesure. But if, I fear, she warns the Reader, I lose my chance to roughly breed’er. How then to lurk and scare and bite more secret readers in the night? For it’s my bite that spreads my seed, and it’s your fear that fuels my need. The news that turns you sickly green is: I will bite you with my penis.

Lucy-Looky-Loo’s head appears among pillows or from above or within headboard.

Lucy-Looky-Loo: He will bite you with his penis.

Reader: What?

Looky-Loo: What?

Lucy-Looky-Loo: Nothing.

Reader & Looky-Loo: Okay.

Reader and Looky-Loo look directly at each other. They scream, retreating, each bumping against a wall or other barrier.

Looky-Loo: You were not supposed to see me!

Reader: You were not supposed to be me!

Looky-Loo: I’m not you, I’m Looky-Loo!

Reader: It’s true, you’re you; it’s true, I’m me – but in my darkest heart of hearts, where I admit I like my farts, I see in you a part of me.

Looky-Loo: Dear Reader, that you recognize in you this size of appetite to lurk and pounce in dark of night, be it to scare in innocence – or rend and tear in recompense for passing slights and feelings hurted, I am surprised that you have blurted out that we’re more same than not.

Reader: Despite what I’ve been told and taught, in smoking splurge or drunken bender, I’ll go against the common plot and state that evil has no gender. A penis from Mars or a vulva from Venus does not make you more or less inclined to meanness. It’s equal parts nurture and nature that shape us, and also that shape those who maim us or rape us. I thrill at the kinky, the dark and taboo – I rub it when watching the Dragon Tattoo. If thoughts are as actions, then lock us all up: I’ve fantasized evil and flooded my cup. And though all my crimes remain in my head, who knows what I’d do with unlimited powers? What dread have we done with our secretest hours when certain they’d never be lit be the sun? Light makes the shadow. The knowledge of light is what’s driving us mad, perceptions of binaries sinking our Ark, conflicted with humankind craving the dark.

Looky-Loo: I disagree. You go to far. I will not get into your car. I’m bad, you’re good – that’s how I like it. My path is dark; alone I’ll hike it.

Reader: You may not hide from me henceforth; I know you, now: and North or South, each time your mouth encloses some forbidden fruit, I’m there in mind to follow suit.

Looky-Loo: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!

Looky-Loo leaps from the stage into the seats, jaws open wide, toothed tongue biting at your eye, O Penetrable Audience of One.

The last thing you see with both eyes before Looky-Loo bites your eye ball out of your head is Lucy-Looky-Loo whispering to Reader and handing her a note.

Looky-Loo sees you seeing and turns toward the stage.

Reader gets up, running to her bedroom door. Will she make it in time?

Reader: No human heart can see what’s dark unless it knows that darkling spark.

Looky-Loo leaps at the stage, gets tangled in seats, falling.

Lucy-Looky-Loo: Go! If you can get out before he gets you, you can escape to wherever thought lets you!

Reader is fumbling with locked door.

From outside the window:

A jingle.

A giggle.

Reader stops, turns toward window.

Looky-Loo leaps, landing on the stage, claws extended.

The lights go out.

End of Scene 1.
A note: You, dear Audience, have entwined your fate with that of the Reader. Looky-Loo has eaten one of your eyes, the best and favoritest of the two. If you have more than two eyes, Looky-Loo still ate the best one. This play does not exist. This scene does not exist. Nothing in this scene is real or has ever happened. These words are not here, this title-less play cannot be named. If you try to search for it, you will find only dust and spider legs.Stop looking.
Stop looking.
If you want to have sleeping, stop looking.
For he will come leaping to lurk when you’re sleeping, to Look and to lure you each time you are sure you are safe, yet alone. He bites to the bone.
Enjoy of your day. Go sit in the sun.

Forget of this play or he’ll have the most fun.

Remember these words but forgetting the text,
Or he will come Look you